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Consumers Turning to Turkey More Often

It is well known that when it comes to poultry sales, chicken rules the roost, but as the holidays approach, could it be time for turkey to gobble up a bigger share of the US market?

According to new research from Mintel on the U.S. poultry market, it just might be as sales of turkey, duck, and other specialty birds grew a considerable 6.5 percent in just one year, reaching $7.1 billion (2011–12).

Growing from $6 billion in 2008, other poultry products, largely consisting of turkey, grew the most in this category. Moreover, more than eight in 10 (84 percent) Americans say they eat turkey; chicken is eaten by 94 percent, and other poultry, such as duck, goose, and hen, are consumed by 23 percent of the population.

Today, poultry in the U.S. is valued at $30 billion (2012), with chicken parts accounting for 58 percent of the total poultry market. Worth $17.3 billion in 2011, sales of chicken parts grew 4.5 percent year on year.

Meanwhile, whole chickens weren’t chicken scratch, with sales of $5.5 billion in 2012, an increase of 0.6 percent over 2011.

“The growth of other poultry products over 2011 and 2012 is partly attributed to the increasing popularity of Heritage turkeys, which are bigger, take longer to reach maturity, and sell for more than standard turkeys,” says John N. Frank, category manager for…